1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to electric guitars equipped with “floating bridge” tremolo devices. More specifically, the invention is a locking and tuning stabilizing device which modifies a Floyd Rose floating bridge tremolo device to permit the user to more easily lock the tremolo device, thereby stopping the tremolo effect, which stabilizes the tuning. With the present invention, locking the tremolo device can be performed quickly and easily by manually turning respective knobs that are located at conveniently accessible locations on the guitar, even when playing the guitar.
2. Description of Related Art
Tremolo devices used on stringed instruments, such as guitars, have been used for a long time. One of the original and still very popular solid-body electric guitars equipped with a tremolo device is the guitar built by the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation (Scottsdale, Ariz.), which dates back to the 1950's. However, more recently, this type of tremolo device has been replaced with a more widely used tremolo device called the “Floyd Rose” tremolo device, originally patented in 1979 by Floyd Rose in U.S. Pat. No. 4,171,661, discussed below. In both the original Fender and the original Rose versions, the tremolo devices are blocks that pivot on a fulcrum located on the front face of the guitar. On one side of the fulcrum, the tremolo block is fastened to the strings on the front face of the guitar; on the opposite side, the tremolo block is attached to springs that, in turn, are fastened to the guitar body in a cavity near the rear face.
U.S. Pat. No. 668,604, issued to Russell on Feb. 19, 1901, U.S. Pat. No. 1,747,650, issued to Sawyer on Feb. 18, 1930, and U.S. Pat. No. 1,755,019, issued to Parker, Jr. on Apr. 15, 1930, broadly teach stringed musical instruments that have tremolo effects created by bending the neck of the instrument back-and-forth relative to the body.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,171,661, issued to Rose on Oct. 23, 1979, teaches a guitar with a tremolo device in which the strings are intended to stay in tune when the tremolo device is not being used.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,285,262, issued to Scholz on Aug. 25, 1981, teaches a tremolo device in which all the strings can be re-tuned simultaneously.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,383,466, issued to Shibuya on May 17, 1983, teaches a tremolo device for an electric guitar in which the strings can be individually tuned.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,608,906, issued to Takabayashi on Sep. 2, 1986, teaches a guitar tremolo device having a tuning feature.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,656,916, issued to Gressett, Jr. on Apr. 14, 1987, teaches a modified tremolo device which tunes all the strings simultaneously using an adjustment screw extending from the device to the bottom of the guitar.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,882,967, issued to Rose on Nov. 28, 1989, teaches a tremolo device having a locking feature.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,311,804, issued to Wilkinson on Mar. 17, 1994, teaches a spring-loaded locking mechanism for a “floating bridge” tremolo device, such as for a Floyd Rose tremolo device.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,986,192, issued to Wingfield et al. on Nov. 16, 1999, teaches a locking device for tremolo devices on electric guitars.
There is a need in the art, however, for a convenient manner of locking or unlocking the tremolo device whenever desired, particularly by using easily accessible and rotatable knobs on the guitar body.
None of the above inventions and patents, taken either singly or in combination, is seen to describe the instant invention as claimed.